World

LONDON — Singer Zayn Malik said on Wednesday he was quitting the best-selling pop band One Direction because he wanted to live a normal life and apologized to fans of the hugely popular British-Irish group for doing so. The decision by Malik to quit came after he dropped out of …

LONDON — The BBC said on Wednesday it would not renew the contract of Jeremy Clarkson, the hugely-popular but divisive presenter of its motoring program “Top Gear” after what it called an unprovoked physical attack on a producer. Clarkson, 54, who has generated both controversy and profits for Britain’s publicly …

BENGHAZI, Libya — Islamic State militants claimed a suicide bombing that killed seven people at an army checkpoint in the Libyan city of Benghazi on Tuesday and triggered retaliatory airstrikes by army forces. In a separate incident in Libya’s second-largest city, where army forces are fighting Islamist militants, a rocket …

By Mark Hosenball, Phil Stewart and Matt Spetalnick, Reuters on March 24, 2015, at 8:10 p.m.

WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia is moving heavy military equipment including artillery to areas near its border with Yemen, U.S. officials said Tuesday, raising the risk that the Middle East’s top oil power will be drawn into the worsening Yemeni conflict. The buildup follows a southward advance by Iranian-backed Houthi Shiite …

VATICAN CITY — In Pope Francis’ latest gesture toward Rome’s homeless, the Vatican said Tuesday homeless people will get a special private tour of its museums and the Sistine Chapel. About 150 homeless people who frequent the Vatican area — where Pope Francis has already set up facilities for them …

SEYNE-LES-ALPES, France — French investigators will sift through wreckage Wednesday for clues into why a German Airbus plowed into an Alpine mountainside, killing all 150 people on board, including 16 schoolchildren returning from an exchange trip to Spain. The A320 jet operated by Lufthansa’s Germanwings budget airline was obliterated when …

LONDON — British police said Monday they were hunting for thieves who broke into an apartment in northwest England and stole 38 Royal python snakes. The nonvenomous snakes, which included eight pregnant females, were taken from a house in St. Helens last week, police added. Two men were spotted leaving …

DUBAI — Yemeni Foreign Minister Riyadh Yaseen called Monday for Gulf Arab military intervention to halt advances by Houthi fighters, a move that could draw neighboring states into the country’s deepening power struggle. The Sunni Muslim monarchies of the Gulf back President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, whose forces have recently suffered …

SINGAPORE — Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first prime minister and architect of the tiny city-state’s rapid rise from British military outpost to global trade and financial center, died on Monday aged 91. Although Lee had receded from public and political life over the past few years, he was still seen …

LONDON — British police arrested four men and two women after they tried to force their way into a synagogue in Stamford Hill in north London in the early hours of Sunday morning. The gang was seen damaging property and shouting abuse in video footage posted on YouTube. Police said …

COPENHAGEN — Russia threatened to aim nuclear missiles at Danish warships if Denmark joins NATO’s missile defense system, in comments Copenhagen called unacceptable and NATO said would not contribute to peace. Denmark said in August it would contribute radar capacity on some of its warships to the missile shield, which …

TUNIS, Tunisia — Praised as a model of Arab Spring progress, Tunisia has finally been drawn onto the global jihadi battlefield after Islamist militants gunned down foreign tourists in a brazen assault at the heart of the capital. The storming of the Bardo museum inside the heavily guarded parliament compound …

DIFFA, Niger — Two Chadian army helicopters bombed Nigerian Boko Haram positions Sunday, killing several dozen militants near a village on the border with Niger, a senior Niger military official told Reuters. Niger and Chadian soldiers have been fighting the Islamist militants in a joint mission with Nigeria and Cameroon …

WASHINGTON — The momentum of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has been blunted and the extremist group is not “on the march” as it was previously, CIA Director John Brennan said on Sunday. “Clearly ISIS’s momentum inside of Iraq and Syria has been blunted, and it has been stopped. …

MONT SAINT MICHEL, France — France’s North Atlantic coast was experiencing its first giant tide of the millennium Saturday as the full moon and this week’s solar eclipse combined to help create an ocean surge not seen there since 1997. At the picturesque Mont Saint Michel island, where some of …

ADEN — Al-Qaida fighters captured the capital of a province in southern Yemen late Friday, killing about 20 soldiers, before they were driven out by the army, local officials and residents said. The fighting came hours after suicide bombers killed 137 people in the national capital Sanaa, in coordinated attacks …

BEIRUT — Two car bombs killed at least 25 people and wounded 80 celebrating the new year festival of Nowruz in the mainly Kurdish city of Hassaka in northeastern Syria, state media said on Friday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights group, which tracks the four-year-old Syrian civil war, said …

UNITED NATIONS — Russia has asked a United Nations General Assembly committee to vote on Tuesday on its proposal to stop the world body extending staff benefits to all same-sex couples, diplomats said. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in July that the U.N. would recognize all same-sex marriages of its …

By Tom Ayers, Halifax Chronicle Herald on March 20, 2015, at 3:19 p.m.

The Marine Atlantic ferry MV Blue Puttees was expected to finally make it into port in North Sydney late Friday after being stuck in thick pack ice off Cape Breton since Wednesday. Help arrived Friday morning, but it was slow going all day, said Darrell Mercer, spokesman for Marine Atlantic. …

By Hamid Shalizi and Jessica Donati, Reuters on March 20, 2015, at 2:43 p.m.

KABUL — An Afghan cleric and a police official on Friday defended the lynching of a woman in central Kabul after a mob was filmed stamping on the woman and smashing a brick on her head after she was accused of burning a Koran, Islam’s holy book. The woman’s body …